“No. I’ve known you twenty years. I can read your facial expressions and your aura. You have a lot of inner turmoil happening right now,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re at odds with what your head has always been told was true about the world, versus what is true. Right now, both sides are having a standoff. I’ve met your grandmother, so I know you come by your stubborn streak honestly.”
I did my best to avoid making a witty retort. Mostly because I was trying to be more open-minded about the idea that witches, shifters, vampires, demons, and a whole other slew of supernatural creatures were real.
Ironically, I’d been raised Catholic, and while we believed in demons, the devil, and God, not many of us walked around thinking we’d run into a demon. They were something we’d worry about after death when we went to wherever it was we went. Not something we could bump into at the supermarket.
From what I was learning about Grimm Cove, having a demon at the corner market with you wasn’t out of the realm of reason. In fact, if Poppy’s brand-spanking-new husband was to be believed, there were several businesses owned and operated by demons in town.
Brett just so happened to be Poppy’s high school sweetheart, first love, current husband, and fated mate or something, but I’d not gotten all the details just yet, so I was a bit fuzzy on how all that worked.
I was fuzzy on a lot.
All I knew was that we’d rolled into town forty-eight hours ago, she’d hit the tree outside of Brett’s house, and out he came—rushing headfirst back into her life after being gone from it for twenty years. The two wasted no time bumping uglies, and if I dared to believe one of the two ghosts residing with us, Poppy and Brett were now married in the eyes of the supernatural community and expecting twins.
Marcy made a move to head deeper into my room with her pet tree-rat, and I blocked her path. She grunted. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re very hostile?”
“People tell me that daily,” I said.
She sighed. “Good. I’d hate for you to forget.”
“Not likely.”
She continued to pet Burgess as she glanced up at me. “You should see if Jeffrey is free today. He could visit your new office with you.”
“Jeffrey?” I asked, unsure why Marcy would bring up Brett’s best friend.
“Yes,” she said, a knowing look on her face. “I’m sure he’d find time in his schedule to take you over there.”
“I don’t need a male escort,” I returned, my thoughts instantly going to the tall, sandy-blond-haired hunk. He, like Brett, was more than met the eye. And just like Brett, he was a wolf-shifter. I hadn’t actually seen either of them shift forms yet and wasn’t sure I wanted to. But I had to wonder if my imagination was making more out of it than it truly was. Then again, the dude could turn into a freaking wolf, so it’s not as if it was no biggie.
“Any reason why you keep turning down Jeffrey’s advances?” she asked coyly. “I know he’s not like the men you normally date—you know, the ones with designer suits specially tailored for them, watches that cost more than most people make in a year, full of legalese, but he’s very attractive and funny.”
Very attractive didn’t even begin to cover what Jeffrey Farkas was. I’d seen a lot of hot guys in my life, but he took the cake. And Marcy was right, Jeffrey was a far cry from the arrogant city guys I’d played hide the cannoli with in the past. He was rugged and rough around the edges. Oddly, I found that hot as hell.
The guy had a body to die for, but there was something about him that was off-putting. Like how my body seemed to react to his each and every time he was around. It was as if I went into heat the minute I heard his voice and had to fight to keep my mind from wandering to the bedroom.
That wasn’t like me.
I didn’t get swept up in men.
At least I hadn’t since I was in my teens, and even that paled in comparison to the way my ovaries stood at attention the second they detected the alpha male in my vicinity.
I wasn’t one of those pathetic women who drooled over a man and lost themselves in a guy. I was a serious career woman, and my focus needed to be on coming to grips with the fact supernaturals were real and getting my practice up and running smoothly.
Not on getting Jeffrey into bed.
I just wished my hormones understood as much. They were all for me being a pathetic drooling mess of a woman. They were Team Jeffrey, and they were about as easy to argue with as Nonna.
My hormones had a sexual awakening about two seconds after my introduction to Jeffrey. That had come in the form of me accidentally punching him in the face. From there, we’d spent the greater part of my first day in Grimm Cove practically joined at the hip.
He’d helped with moving us into the house and we exploited his muscles for all they were worth. Just thinking about seeing him lift heavy objects made my insides flutter with anticipation of more.
Didn’t hurt that he’d played the hero as well. He’d come charging in during the succu-bitch’s attempt to kill us and had helped take out some of her minions. He’d then proceeded to spend the entire day after trying to take me out—on a date, that is.
I’d nearly said yes.
Something deep down had stopped me from accepting his offers. Like maybe saying yes to a date wouldn’t end there. That it would lead to something more. Something I wasn’t sure I was ready for and had a fairly good idea the playboy wasn’t ready for either.
Sure, Nonna would be thrilled, but I couldn’t worry about that. I had other things to focus on.
Jeffrey wasn’t one of them.
“Thinking about the very sexy wolf-shifter?” asked Marcy with a grin.
I grunted. “No.”
“Sure you’re not,” she mouthed, as she left my room, leaving the door standing wide open. The tree-rat went with her. I counted my blessings where I could get them and went to work locating my other running shoe.
I needed to blow off steam, and quick. It was that or risk a homicidal incident. Or worse yet, risk hunting Jeffrey down and using him to alleviate my hormonal overload.
Six
Jeffrey
Jeffrey sat on the edge of Brett’s desk, holding a cup of coffee in his hand from Demon Grounds Coffee Café, which was by far his favorite in town. Not that he’d ever confess as much to the owner of Magik Brew. She made a very nice cup of coffee, but her strong suit was tea and other types of drinks.
Brett entered his office, in full uniform, looking official and respectable. He raised a brow as he spotted Jeffrey plopped on the edge of his desk.
Holding up a second cup of Demon Grounds coffee, Jeffrey grinned. “Grabbed you one too.”
“Thanks,” said Brett, coming for the coffee. He took it and then walked around to the other side of his desk and sat in a large black leather chair. “If you’re here, who is handling restocking the bar and overseeing things there?”
“Austin,” said Jeffrey.
“Finally letting the guy do the job you’re paying him for rather than making him a delivery boy?” asked Brett.
“Something like that.”
Brett took a sip of his coffee and went to work keying in something on his keyboard. He had an interesting system of hunting and pecking but at a fast pace. “I’m not going to put in a good word for you with Dana. Stop asking.”
“How do you know I’m here for that?” asked Jeffrey.
He was there for that, but still.
Brett kept typing. “Because for the last two days, you’ve tried just about anything you can to convince me to get her to go on a date with you. Face it, buddy, she’s just not that into you.”
“I find that hard to believe,” countered Jeffrey. “Chicks dig me. And women don’t turn me down. Ever.”
“This one does,” said Brett with a shrug. “As much as she possibly can. Speaks highly of her character. Don’t ya think?”
“Bro, I brought you coffee,” pleaded Jeffrey. “Your favorite kind. Cut me some slack and set me up on a dat
e with your roomie. Convince her to give me a go.”
With a groan, Brett kept typing and staring at his computer screen as he spoke. “She’s not my roomie. Poppy and I haven’t ironed out the living arrangement yet.”
“Meaning you live with your mate, her two besties, her deceased yet hardly gone grandparents, and her adult twins?” asked Jeffrey, holding back his laugh.
“Yeah,” said Brett, glancing up from his task briefly. He looked tired at the mention of everyone currently calling the Proctor House home.
“You just got the old Belliveau house all restored. You up for taking on another project? Especially one the size of the Proctor place?” asked Jeffrey, already knowing the answer. Growing up, there had been two homes in Grimm Cove that Brett had always taken a shine to. One was Mrs. Belliveau’s home, which he’d purchased and restored after her passing. The other was the Proctor House. There was no way he was going to miss out on a chance to get his hands on the house and restore it as well.
Jeffrey had never been bitten by the remodeling bug. Sure, he helped Brett often because it gave them time together, and as best friends, it’s what you did, but he didn’t find a ton of joy in it.
He preferred being at his place near the water. He liked to fish and be out on his boat. That was his happy spot.
“Poppy and I haven’t had a chance to discuss me fixing the place up just yet,” he said, his typing slowing. “Tuck is all for it.”
“Having conversations with her long-dead grandfather has got to be tops on the ‘shit I wouldn’t have guessed would happen to you’ list,” said Jeffrey, still amused with Brett’s situation.
Better him than me.
Jeffrey was happy to be a free agent. Able to play the field and do who and what he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. He didn’t have anyone to answer to except himself. Brett currently had a laundry list of people to answer to.
“Tuck and I are doing okay,” said Brett. “He’s happy I’m with his granddaughter now and excited about having more great-grandchildren, but I’m a guy. That means he’s not a fan of me having alone time with Poppy. If you catch my drift.”
“He doesn’t want you doing the nasty with his granddaughter. He has a look-but-don’t-touch policy.” Jeffrey laughed so hard he nearly fell off the side of the desk. “Is Ellie-Sue any better about it?”
“She’s pretty much the only reason I’ve gotten alone time with my wife,” admitted Brett. “But I came around the corner yesterday evening, before dinner, to find her pressing Poppy for details on my bedroom skills. She wanted to know if I stacked up against the ex.”
“Do you?” asked Jeffrey.
Brett’s eyes flashed from chocolate brown to yellow, signaling his wolf was close to surfacing fully. “I can’t believe you asked me that.”
Lifting his hands while still holding his coffee, Jeffrey did the universal signal for surrender but couldn’t help but laugh. “Forget I asked.”
After a few tense seconds, Brett’s eyes returned to normal.
That was good. Jeffrey really didn’t want to pull the alpha card on him. Sometimes it sucked being the top dog.
Brett had spent the greater part of nineteen years watching over Poppy and her children while she was married to another man. A human. One who’d ended up opening the door for a succubus to make a move against Poppy and everyone close to her.
Thankfully, they’d all come out of the other side of the ordeal in one piece. The succubus and the men she’d enthralled into doing her bidding were dead and gone. While they were no longer a threat, Jeffrey couldn’t let go of the idea that all was not perfect in the town and something dark lurked right around the corner.
He was probably reading too much into it all.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop was more his father’s style than his. Did that mean he was becoming like his dad? It wasn’t a thought he wanted to entertain. He’d spent his life living in the man’s shadow.
He had to admit he missed the days when there was little to no responsibility to be had.
Jeffrey had spent a chunk of the day prior visiting with the Helens family, offering his condolences on the passing of Robbie. He’d been one of the succu-bitch’s victims. The idea that Robbie was dead and gone still hadn’t totally sunk in for Jeffrey.
Stella was taking it hard, and that was to be expected. She and Robbie had finally acted on the attraction they’d had for one another. They’d not been a couple long when he’d died.
“Hey, have you seen Ryan around?” asked Jeffrey.
Brett glanced at him, sighed, and shook his head. “No. Travis mentioned hearing Ryan was taking off to the Helenses’ hunting cabin to be alone. I don’t know how true that is. How is the rest of the family doing?”
“As good as can be expected,” said Jeffrey, wishing their world wasn’t a violent one. The truth of the matter was, he and Brett tended to process death differently than others. They’d seen a lot of it while in the military and more than their fair share prior to enlisting.
Death was part of the shifter world.
They didn’t like it, but they’d learned to accept it—at least for the most part.
“How goes it with the twins? Any trouble in paradise since they rolled into town?” asked Jeffrey, wanting to change the subject. He had to throw himself into a topic that wasn’t the loss of a pack mate.
Poppy had a son and a daughter from her first marriage. The children were eighteen now and freshmen in college. They were also in Grimm Cove, having just gotten into town yesterday. Jeffrey had met them briefly when he’d run into them at the market with their mother. While they seemed like very nice, very well-mannered young adults, he had to wonder how they were handling the news their mother had been claimed by a wolf-shifter and was now considered married in the eyes of the supernatural community.
Not to mention, the news supernaturals were a real thing.
Brett stopped working and stared up at Jeffrey. “Oddly, they’ve been fine with it. Correction, Pepper seems totally fine with it all. Happy for her mother, and me even. Tucker is civil and perfectly respectful, but I think he’s not as quick to trust others. Namely me. I think he’s worried I’ll hurt his mother like his father did. He’s got a lot of resentment for Thomas going on. Poppy’s tried to talk to him about it, but he’s not very receptive. I offered to give it a go, but no one thought that was a good idea when I brought it up.”
From what Jeffrey had learned through Brett, Poppy’s ex-husband had spent the whole of their nineteen-year marriage having affairs with other women. But Poppy hadn’t found out until the end, when he’d informed her that he wanted a divorce and didn’t love her anymore. That he was in love with a woman he barely knew.
Karma was a bitch, because the woman he ended up leaving Poppy for turned out to be a succubus-witch hybrid who had only been using the man to gain access to Poppy and the Proctor House.
For as much as that all had to suck for Poppy to go through, it had put her on the same page as Brett once more. And Brett had wasted no time claiming her. Unlike the first time they were a couple. He’d gone and screwed the pooch on that one big time. But Fate had found a way to right the wrongs of the past and Jeffrey couldn’t recall a time he’d ever seen Brett happier.
“Mated life suits you, brother,” said Jeffrey before taking a drink of his coffee.
A smile touched Brett’s lips. “I still can’t believe it’s real.”
“Believe it. In like nine months, you’ll have a set of twins to prove it,” said Jeffrey with a grin. “Can’t wait to see you doing diaper duty.”
Brett took a deep breath. “Ellie-Sue told me that Poppy won’t go full term with the twins. She’ll have them sooner than that.”
“How bizarre is it to have conversations with your wife’s dead grandmother?” asked Jeffrey.
Brett tipped his head to the side. “It’s pretty out there. Tuck and Ellie-Sue just pop up anywhere, at any time. That’s gonna take some getting used to.”
&
nbsp; “I’ll bet,” said Jeffrey. “Unless you and Poppy decide to move into your house. It’s plenty big.”
“She’d never leave her family home, and I’d never ask her to,” said Brett evenly.
“What about having Marcy and Dana move into your house?” asked Jeffrey. “That would free up space and give you two a little more privacy.”
“You want to be the one to bring that up to my wife?” asked Brett.
Jeffrey thought on it. “Nope. Best I can tell you is to see if you can get the ghosts to wear bells or something to announce their arrival.”
Chuckling, Brett sat back in his chair and took his coffee with him. “I miss this.”
“Coffee?” asked Jeffrey.
“Yes. Dana is the only one at the house who drinks it, and she has some fancy coffee press thing that I can’t figure out. I know I look about as country as country can get to Poppy’s friends and kids. I don’t want to go asking how to work the press and prove just how country I am. I watched a video on the internet but apparently, I’m all thumbs. I made a mess. My only option in the morning has been herbal tea,” said Brett, the look on his face speaking volumes.
Unable to help himself, Jeffrey laughed. “Gag.”
Brett nodded.
“So, Dana likes coffee, huh?” asked Jeffrey, his mind spinning with ideas to woo her.
Groaning, Brett sat up in the chair once more. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but stop. I know you. You’re not used to being told no. That means you’re going to go above and beyond to get your way. Leave this one alone, Farkas. She’s my wife’s best friend. You rock that boat and they’ll never find your body.”
Jeffrey nearly joked it off but stopped, instead fumbling with the plastic lid of his coffee cup. “I’m not sure I can leave it alone.”
“What do you mean?” asked Brett. “It’s easy. Just find another skirt to chase. You’re good at that. Ask your momma. She’ll tell you all about your skirt-chasing ways.”
She would. He was right. But there was something about Dana that felt different from the other women. Sure, she’d turned him down each time he’d asked her out, so there was that, but there was something more. He just couldn’t quite pinpoint what that something more was.
Hexing with a Chance of Tornadoes: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Romance Novel (Grimm Cove Book 2) Page 6